Good Company

In every mission the missionaries are issued a Preparation Day or as many call it a "P-Day". It is one day of the week when the missionaries can take a break from missionary service and spend some personal time taking care of errands such as writing letters home, buying groceries, playing sports, site seeing or any other appropriate activity. I arrived in the mission field straight out of the training center and my Portuguese was still very weak, I could not communicate with anybody. I had been in the city of Salvador for only a couple of days and my first official P-Day had arrived. That morning my companion had said something to me but I had no idea what he was saying. I felt so down and alone because I was on a different continent away from all my friends and family. People were speaking in a language I couldn't understand and I stuck out like a sore thumb and was embarrassed I couldn't understand anyone. We left our home that day and made our way to wherever we were going. We walked through the ghetto until we made our way to a house. We went inside and the family inside started to smile while cheering and greeting the missionaries I was with and then greeting me. I saw pictures of LDS temples on their walls as well as pictures of Jesus Christ and realized we were in the home of some members. They then started to pull food and meat out of their fridge as they prepared the grill, I quickly realized we were there to eat lunch and have a BBQ. Normally I would have been excited to have been in a social situation like that but when I was unable to understand 99% of the words that were being said I quickly felt uncomfortable and worried what these people would think of me for not knowing their language. We all sat around as the food was cooked and this family quickly started to engage in conversation with me. It was difficult for me to speak with them and instead of seeing it as an obstacle the family quickly realized I was still new and made me feel very welcome. They spend the afternoon communicating with me with the simple words I did now, hand actions and even pictures. Verbally we didn't connect much but through other creative ideas we did. It turned out to be an evening I enjoyed most on my mission. I meant some very cool people and ate the best BBQ of my life. It was from that point on I realized the Brazilian people in general were very kind and outgoing and cared about making other people feel welcome. It was from that point on I enjoyed the opportunity to meet new people in Brazil because I knew how kind and fun they could be to be around. I'm very grateful for that one family that took me in the first week and quickly became my friends. They taught me a very good lesson in accepting people for who they are, taking them in and treating them how you would like to be treated.